What is the historical context of the Master Mason degree in Freemasonry?

Early eighteenth-century Freemasonry operated with a single form of initiation rather than a system of multiple degrees 123. The development of the Master Mason degree occurred gradually in England between 1717 and 1730 12.

In the earliest post-1717 practice, a candidate received what later became the first two degrees in a single ceremony 3. As the organization expanded, a demand arose for a distinct third step, which was formalized between 1723 and 1725 by dividing the original apprentice material and transferring existing Fellow Craft traditions to the new Master Mason degree 3. Initially, this third status appears to have functioned as an honorific or reward given to those who had "passed the chair" 12. George Oliver argued that John Theophilus Desaguliers and James Anderson were largely responsible for constructing the degree's central Hiramic legend from Jewish Targum texts published in London in 1715 2.

The introduction of the degree was slower in Scotland, where operative lodge traditions persisted longer 32. The term "raised" to describe conferring the third degree first appears in Scottish records at Lodge Kilwinning in 1736 2, while the Lodge of Edinburgh (Mary's Chapel) recorded its first raising in November 1738 2. Many Scottish lodges remained unacquainted with the degree into the 1760s before its practice became standard across the Craft 2.